An Abbysal Abscond

[Okor]

The Leprous Legionnaire shouldered the bulk of bit battle-cannon, a strange silence reigning where there was once the static shrieks of a digital demon. He breathed deeply, filling recently regrown lungs with his acidic atmosphere of choice, the organs cancer-ridden despite existing for little more than an hour.

Worms still writhed within his throat, silken threads repairing the trauma of his decapacitation. He had survived. This was a welcome change from the chaos of the previous Abyss, the betrayal and bloodshed that had ended with the Triumvirate of Titans lying slain upon the blood-stained sands of the arena.

But he was no longer the newborn Prime he once was, still slick behind the ears with the Omnillium-infused waters of his entrance into this accursed reality. In the sunless sepulchres beneath the Earth, he had taken the skulls of Gods. Within the shadow of Death Mountain, he drew the blood of a Draconic Deity.

He was Okor Gods-Damned Paleblood.

He stood taller, his twisted spine unfurling as it raised him above the blank landscape. Hatred and rage coiled around his blackened hearts, choking the life from him as his gangrenous God breathed violent vigour back into his corpse, a cycle of death and rebirth perpetuated by his own plagued psyche.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

He gazed out over the featureless plane of existence that greeted fresh Primes, its emptiness already healed of the scars of battle. How many lives had been offered up to the Smiling God in this Nexus of power?

He could still feel the phantom sensation of warm blood upon his gauntlets, the hearts of heroes laid bare and torn from their torsos, all in the name of justice.

He had contributed his fair share to the tally, the infernal ledger of life marking every soul slated for their inevitable demise. It was the way of things: You were born, and in time, you died. What happened between was in nobody’s hands but your own.

But someone had been unfortunate enough to have been twice-cursed at their inception. Torn from Nurgle’s welcoming embrace, they were shaped from the Aether by some careless prime, and sent to roam the world with firearm and flame, denied the terrible truths of the realm, and led to their demise.

Fiara would repeat the cycle, without aid. Reborn without the hard-won knowledge of the Abyss by an uncaring Demiurge, and thrown back out into reality to die once more.

He shifted his massive pauldrons as he attempted to sight any other figure open the Nexus, his dual hearts beating sluggishly. Blood still stained his fangs, the vital fluids of a thousand abominations sating the intrinsic lust for death bred into his very being. The stolen life lay heavy in his gut, slowly being digested by both acidic innards and the host of parasites infesting his carcass.

The maddening tides of the Empyrean had flowed, and now they were at their ebb. Twisted talons of warpstuff slid out from his mind, leaving the ragged remnants of his psyche to struggle until the siren lure of slaughter called to him once more.

The grim business of death had been finalized, leaving the unfamiliar task of life in its place.

He sighed, diseased breath passing through an Orthodontist’s worst nightmare. He had to find the prime that forged Fiara, and break the cycle of ignorance and death that threatened to consume their existence.

Corroded ceramite impacted against the nothingness of the Nexus as be began his journey, each stride carrying him towards a yet-unknown destination. Where the hell are the heroes when you need them?